I want to thank you so very much for the praise regarding my shawl.  It is an incredible feeling to know that you like it.  There is always a fear that when you put something of yourself out there, it will be met with polite silence.  I am incredibly grateful (and relieved) that you have made that fear not come true.

I must admit that I have been feeling a little lost without the shawl on my needles.  I suppose that means I could, I don’t know, maybe actually work on some wips.  But there isn’t an interest in doing that.  Thus, I’m sort of in a “what now?” place with my knitting. 

In the mean time, about the color…what to do about the color?  The poll is showing a slight favorite for leaving it as it is. Even my SIL chimed in with a do not touch it.  However, handpainting is running a close second. 

I have given it much thought.  I think that handpainting the shawl would create an absolutely stunning work of art.  IF it is done properly.  I’m not prepared for that.  I made an attempt at painting my swatches a few months before with less than pleasing results.  It looked…contrived.  I think that is the best way to put it.  I have more swatches.  As the mood strikes, I will paint more of them.  If I hit upon a color combination and dyeing process that works, I will paint the shawl.  Until then I am going to leave it as it is - ivory.

For those of you who voted for solid color, I have a solution.  Knitabulous has kindly agreed to test knit a second shawl.  She has chosen a beautiful solid color for the yarn.  If you stalk her blog, you’ll probably get a chance to see it.

If you are recently new to my blog, you may be wondering how this project got started. The answer is Joan.  Over a year ago, she taught a class called Focus on Lace.  The final assignment was to knit a lace object, preferably of our own design.  All the assignments preceeding that were intended to prepare us.  When I started the class, I had the idea to knit the peacock feather shawl from Fiddlesticks. While I thought that was ambitious enough, Joan challenged me to think bigger.  I believe her exact words were “Why knit a feather when you could knit the whole bird?”

There have been many requests for the pattern. (Again, wow, thanks for making a girl feel good about her work!)  That is encouragement enough to get the process started on drafting a pattern for sale.  How that will happen is a question I’m not ready to answer.  If I understand state law, selling it myself will require a license. Even if it is only sold over the internet in electronic form.  (I’m in no position to explain why but Michigan seems to take the state sales tax thing very seriously.)  That leaves me the options of ignoring the law or having someone else sell it.  Risking a fight with a state government isn’t very high on my list of things to do before I die.  Thus, I’m going to go with option number 2.  There are suboptions to that option but it will take time to sort those out.  Hopefully, by the time I do, you’ll still think it’s worth knitting.  Of course, this assumes that three decades haven’t passed while I get my act together. 

During email trading, Juno asked if would do a post someday of the complete swatch process.  I think that sounds like a good idea.  At the very least, some of the swatches will provide a few laughs.  There were a few ideas that clearly show I was making it up as I went.  We should all be grateful that I learned from those mistakes and moved on. 

My mom will be the first to tell you that I never do anything in small measure or half way. Thus, I have a long track record of spectacular misses.  (Even my failures are large and usually entertaining to nearby witnesses). However, your support, encouragement, and insightful comments helped me continue to try even when I hit a few bumps in the road.  Thank you!